And Mrs. Levitt took good care to let Mr. Waddington know of these visits, and of her little bridge parties in the evening. "Just Mr. Thurston and Mr. Hawtrey and Major Markham and me." He was teased and worried by his visions of Elise perpetually surrounded by Thurston and Hawtrey and the Major. Supposing--only supposing that--driven by despair, of course--she married that fellow Markham? For the first time in his life Mr. Waddington experienced jealousy. Elise had ceased to be the subject of dreamy, doubtful speculation and had become the object of an uneasy passion. He could give her passion, if it was passion that she wanted; but, because of Fanny, he could not give her a position in the county, and it was just possible that Elise might prefer a position. And Elise was happy, happy in her communion with Mr. Thurston and Mr. Hawtrey and in the thought that their wives detested her; happy in her increasing intimacy with Major Markham and in her consciousness of being well connected; above all, happy in Mr. Waddington's uneasiness. Meanwhile Fanny Waddington kept on calling. "If I don't," she said, "the poor woman will be done for." She couldn't see any harm in Mrs. Levitt. 3 Barbara and Ralph Bevan had been for one of their long walks. They were coming back down the Park when they met, first, Henry, the gardener's boy, carrying a basket of fat, golden pears. "Where are you going with those lovely pears, Henry?" "Mrs. Levitt's, miss." The boy grinned and twinkled; you could almost have fancied that he knew. Farther on, near the white gate, they could see Mr. Waddington and two ladies. He had evidently gone out to open the gate, and was walking on with them, unable to tear himself away. The ladies were Mrs. Rickards and Mrs. Levitt. They stopped. You could see the flutter of their hands and faces, suggesting a final triangular exchange of playfulness. Then Mr. Waddington, executing a complicated movement of farewell, a bow and a half turn, a gambolling skip, the gesture of his ungovernable youth. Then, as he went from them, the abandonment of Mrs. Rickards and Mrs. Levitt to disgraceful laughter. Mrs. Levitt clutched her sister's arm and clung to it, almost perceptibly reeling, as if she said: "Hold me up or I shall collapse. It's too much. Too--too--too--too much." They came on with a peculiar rolling, helpless walk, rocked by the intolerable explosions of their mirth, dabbing their mouths and eyes with their pocket-handkerchiefs in a tortured struggle for control. They recovered sufficiently to pass Ralph and Barbara with serious, sidelong bows. And then there was a sound, a thin, wheezing, soaring yet stifled sound, the cry of a conquered hysteria. "Did you see that, Ralph?" "I did. I heard it." "_He_ couldn't, could he?" "Oh, Lord, no.... They appreciate him, too, Barbara." "That isn't the way," she said. "We don't want him appreciated that way. That rich, gross way."